부산대학교 도서관

For communities of faith, where issues of decline and survival have stifled vitality, this article explores how congregations might intentionally engage the imaginative dynamics of space, story and symbol to construct new frameworks of understanding, revitalize and recreate meaning-making narratives, and reinvigorate old images to become new symbols. This article examines a quality of "stuckness" that such churches often experience, and how such churches might get "unstuck"—opening receptivity of congregational experience to the bursting forth of insight, energy and vitality of spiritual transformation. Engaging in an 18-month narrative inquiry with the congregation I pastor, I led and observed congregation members as they imaginatively interacted with the symbols of the church's stained-glass windows. Stories emerged, deeply rooted in the congregation's tradition and history, connecting people's experiences, memories, desires, with a new relevance to present realities. Previously stuck in stagnant narratives, members were able to compose new stories, reinvigorate meaning, and open themselves to transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]